(Mostly) Chicago food, food media, and other thoughts

Great, another food blog

I like to make fun of food bloggers, so I’m just putting this out there right now, this isn’t intended to be an annoying food blog.

I’ve loved eating out all of my life. I grew up in the suburbs of Northern New Jersey and spent a good deal of time eating out with my parents. Everywhere from Jersey diners to the best restaurants in New York.

Some time ago I came across eGullet and couldn’t believe there were all sorts of other people who liked talking about food as much as I did. So I threw myself into the world of online food discussion. The Chicago-specific discussion on eGullet began to wane, so I moved over to LTHForum.

Since first posting on LTHForum, that site began to change, the people who post on that site began to change, and the very nature of how we read about and discuss restaurants began to change. As those changes really began to take hold, the way I saw food began to change…

I was always a skinny kid. I went off to college a scrawny 18 year old. Four years later I emerged with a respectable but not extraordinary beer gut (I was in a fraternity after-all). But the post-college years of continued drinking, sitting at a desk for 8-12 hours a day, and getting fully immersed in internet food culture began to take hold. Finally, a couple of years ago I decided things had gone too far and I lost 40 pounds. I’m still a bit overweight (if you believe in BMI) but I’m no longer obese. I eat less, I move more, and I take a far less obsessive view towards food. I don’t need to eat everything, all the time, every single time I go out.

The point of that little digression is to bring you to where I am today. I latched on to Twitter as a medium for discussing food for several reasons:

1. I have no desire to write blow-by-blow accounts of long tasting menu meals. 140 characters is enough, most of the time, to get my thoughts across.

2. Posts from tourists asking for dining advice are boring. Go read Chowhound. Same questions, same answers. And God forbid you stray from recommendations that are deemed “acceptable”.

3. I value the opinions of some more than others. Twitter allows me to filter out the noise of people whose tastes don’t line up with my own. I trust the people I interact with on Twitter. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t find a community there.

So, why this blog? Because there are times when I would like more than 140 characters to get a point across. Also, more practically, I need a better place to keep track of all of the restaurants I go to (especially when traveling, for work or otherwise). Twitter is great, but searching and managing your own tweets is terrible thing to attempt.

What this will not be:

A place to find first night reports about new restaurants. I’m not interested in that.

A channel to score comps and invites to special dinners. Not interested in that either.

A gallery of gorgeous food photography. There may be some iPhone pics, but that’s it…I generally dislike taking pictures of my food.